Recover TikTok account hacked or banned

Designated as a Very Large Online Platform by the European Commission in April 2023, TikTok is subject to the reinforced obligations of the EU Digital Services Act. The platform must publish its moderation criteria, provide an accessible internal appeals mechanism and respond to reasoned requests within a reasonable timeframe. Our firm systematically relies on these obligations to demand disclosure of the factual elements grounding the ban and to obtain reactivation when the decision rests on an algorithmic error. These obligations concern European accounts. For clients based outside the European Union, we rely on the terms of service accepted at sign-up, on the law of their country of residence and on the escalation channels of TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, with the same method and comparable results.

TikTok accounts held in the United States are governed by the terms of service concluded with TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which designate California law. Our legal demand relies on the commitments TikTok has made in those terms, on the consumer protection and privacy rules of the State where you live where they apply (for example the California Consumer Privacy Act and its right of access to your personal data), and on direct escalation to the company's legal team. Where the matter goes further, individual arbitration or the court designated in the terms are two possible routes, assessed case by case, with US counsel where local representation is required. The fee is quoted from $950.

Outside the EU and the United States, the case rests on the terms of service you accepted, on the consumer and data protection law of your country of residence and on the TikTok group entity competent for your region. In the United Kingdom, we rely on the UK GDPR and the platform duties under the Online Safety Act; in Switzerland, on the Federal Act on Data Protection; in Canada, on federal and provincial privacy laws. The same method applies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, with local counsel where a filing on site is needed.

TikTok applies a progressive scale of cumulative sanctions: temporary suspensions of 24, 48 or 72 hours, visibility restrictions, then permanent ban after several violations within 90 days. Accounts accumulating strikes for content protected by free speech or wrongfully removed often stem from contestable moderation errors. Our intervention targets the global challenge to the sanctions trajectory rather than a single isolated takedown.

Before any contentious step, we ask our clients to retrieve the precise ground displayed on the TikTok warning screen and in the Help Center, together with the cumulative history of strikes notified over the past 90 days. That qualification drives the legal argument and the identification of any breach by TikTok of its statement-of-reasons obligation under Article 17 of the DSA. A vague, generic or contradictory ground already constitutes a usable lever in the legal demand letter.

To process your case efficiently, we expect dated screenshots of the suspension or ban notification, the account handle and username, the full list of strikes received within the preceding 90 days, the content removed that triggered the sanction, the emails from TikTok and any exchanges with the Trusted Flagger or the moderation team. The quality of these exhibits directly drives the speed of review and the evidentiary strength of the legal demand letter.

Article 20 of the DSA requires diligent and timely handling of internal complaints without setting a fixed time limit. Meta in practice communicates an indicative deadline of around 7 days to respond to an internal complaint, which may be extended in complex cases. In practice, our legal demand letters addressed to TikTok's counsel reach a decision within an average of about one month. Temporary suspensions (24h, 48h, 72h) are legally distinct from the permanent ban triggered by accumulated strikes, the latter requiring denser argumentation and additional legal grounds. These timelines apply in the same way to files outside the European Union, the legal demand letter then being addressed to the group entity competent for your region.

A rejected appeal through the native TikTok form does not close the door to a new remedy. Article 20 of the DSA compels TikTok to re-examine any complaint presenting new factual elements. Our firm builds an argumentation that differs from your first appeal and addresses the legal demand letter to TikTok's internal counsel rather than to self-service tools. Clients located outside the European Union follow the same route, the demand being addressed to the entity of the group that handles their region.

When the legal demand letter and out-of-court avenues fail, the firm initiates judicial proceedings. For personal-use accounts, we file interim relief proceedings before the competent court as urgent interim relief to end a clearly unlawful situation, together with pre-action evidentiary measures where needed, with substantive grounds drawn from the right to privacy, civil liability, Articles 15 and 16 of the GDPR and Article 17 of the DSA. For professional accounts operated as economic assets by creators, brands or companies, we bring the action before the competent commercial court to obtain reactivation and compensation for business losses, lost revenue, harm to commercial image and termination of contracts with partners and advertisers. Where hacking or impersonation is involved, the firm assists in filing a criminal complaint for identity theft and unauthorized access to a computer system. For clients established outside the European Union, we assess jurisdiction in light of the platform's terms of service, the client's domicile and the applicable international conventions, working alongside local counsel when the case calls for it.